Your Turn: When TED Talks,
You Listen (and Paraphrase)

Watch the video of Julian Treasure called “The 4 Ways Sound Affects Us” from the TED Talks series. Listen carefully because you will be taking notes and paraphrasing.  You may want to watch the video a second time to decide which points you might want to quote exactly.

Source: “The 4 ways sound affects us,” Julian Treasure, TED Talks

  1. Take notes using paraphrasing (and quotations when necessary).
  2. When you are finished taking notes, answer the questions in the short quiz that follows. Use your notes for the quiz, too. When you’re finished with the quiz, check your understanding to see the example notes and the answers to the quiz.

Quiz

  1. What are the four ways sound affects us?
  2. Most sound is considered to be accidental and _________?
  3. Which sounds did the speaker identify as good?
  4. How does sound affect retail sales?
  5. Is a noisy workplace good for productivity?
Check Your Understanding

Sample Responses:

Example notes:

- Transform relationship w/sound
- most sound is accidental and unpleasant
- noisy corners
- “relationship w/sound mostly unconscious”

Physiological

- loud bell
- “fight/flight hormone”
- affect heart rate and brainwaves
- surf
- soothing
- “like breathing of sleeping human”

Psychological

- “music most powerful”
- birds- “reassuring” singing OK, stop singing bad

Cognitive

- hard to concentrate with too many noises
- 1/3 as productive in noisy spaces

Behavioral

- move away from unpleasant sound to pleasant
- bad sound damages health
- retail sound “hostile”
- shops lose 28% of sales due to bad music
- designing sounds
- Music powerful recognition + association = power
- 1 sec samples easily recognized “Jaws”
- branding sounds
- nokia ringtone most played sound in world today
- 4 golden rules for commercial sound
- congruent
- appropriate
- valuable
- test it
- Listen consciously and take control

Quiz Answers:

  1. Physiologically, psychologically, cognitively, and behaviorally
  2. Unpleasant
  3. Surf and birds
  4. Makes them go down
  5. No
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